Synopses & Reviews
What is the color of skin?A practical guide to photographing people in the digital age
It's one thing to snap someone's picture. It's another thing entirely to capture the essence that made you reach for your camera in the first place. Now a top Hollywood pro shares his secrets for the digital capture of human skin in all its variety: young, old, male, female, different skin tones and ethnicities, with makeup or without—even tattooed skin!
Using step-by-step tutorials and stunning full-color examples, industry expert Lee Varis teaches it all: the basics of digital imaging, essential tricks to shooting indoors and out, how to light your subjects in any pose, and much more. Above all, you'll find out why the color of skin that's best for final output is almost always a departure from reality.
Topics include:
- Starting with the right hardware and software settings
- Developing your digital color "chops"
- Mastering Rembrandt lighting and other basic techniques
- Overcoming common digital skin problems, such as too much red
- Adjusting skin tones to withstand nearby colors like green grass
- Faking tattoos and photographing the real thing
- Trimming the fat, lighting up the eyes, and filling in wrinkles
- Adding soft focus, retouching, and other advanced Photoshop® techniques
- Discovering what can and what can't be done in post-process
Follow the tutorials in the book with numerous before-and-after sample image files on the companion CD. You'll also find technical reference materials to enhance and reinforce your learning.
- Know how to soften wrinkles and change shapes—and when not to!
- Beautifully color-balance every skin tone
- Brilliantly light any number of subjects in any location
Review
A Hollywood photoillustrator with 30 years of experience, Varis has been published in National Geographic, Newsweek, and Fortune magazines. Far from a manual on fashion or nude photography, this is a comprehensive tutorial on how to photograph all types of people: young, old, and dozens of ethnic varieties. Varis supplements the book with a CD of numerous before-and-after sample image files and technical reference materials. He begins with a discussion of the right hardware and software and how to configure them, then teaches digital color management and lighting techniques as they apply to portraiture. He also provides in-depth chapters on retouching and special effects, including such techniques as skin smoothing, beauty retouching, screen diffusion, and depth of field effects. Highly recommended for serious students. (Library Journal, March 15, 2007)
Synopsis
Achieving accurate skin tones is one of the most challenging tasks in digital photography. Master this challenge with professional photographer Lee Varis as he covers a range of skin: women and men, young and old, various tones, in-studio and outdoors, tattoos, and more. His step-by-step tutorials and before-and-after illustrations demonstrate various techniques for topics such as digital-specific lighting challenges and what can and cannot be done in post-process.
A free CD-ROM accompanies the book and contains sample image files to use while following the tutorials, plus equipment recommendations and technical reference materials that enhance and reinforce the instruction.
Order your copy of this practical guide today and get a complete start-to-finish approach to integrating everything from posing models to shooting and retouching candid scenes.
Synopsis
Order your copy of this practical guide today and get a complete start-to-finish approach to integrating everything from posing models to shooting and retouching candid scenes.
About the Author
Lee Varis, a Hollywood photo-illustrator, has been involved in commercial photography for three decades. His images have been featured in National Geographic, Newsweek, and Fortune magazines, and both his writing and photography have been featured in trade journals such as PDN, New Media, and others. His pictures have appeared on movie posters, video box covers, and CD covers, and in numerous brochures and catalogues. He has been a seminar instructor with APA, PPA, Julia Dean Photographic Workshops, and Apple Computer.
Table of Contents
Introduction.Chapter 1: Digital Imaging Basics.
Chips and Pixels.
Setting Up: Hardware.
Camera.
Memory Cards.
Batteries.
TV Monitor.
Computer.
Monitor and Calibrator.
Setting Up: Software.
Photoshop: Preferences.
Bridge: Preferences and Configurations.
Chapter 2: Color Management,Workflow, and Calibration.
Basic Digital Capture Workflow.
Calibrating for Digital Capture.
Establish Lighting.
Shoot to Bracket the Exposure Range.
View Shots in Bridge and Zero Out Sliders.
Determine the Best Exposure.
Compare the ColorChecker.
Adjust Calibration Sliders.
Save a New Camera Default.
Putting Color Management in Context.
Chapter 3: Lighting and Photographing People.
Lighting Technology.
Basic Portrait Lighting.
Beauty Light.
Rembrandt Lighting.
Natural Light.
On-Camera Flash.
Breaking the Rules.
Advanced Lighting Techniques.
Ring Light.
Combination Lighting: Daylight Plus Flash.
Controlling Natural Light.
Action Stopping Lighting.
Experimenting with Light.
Chapter 4: The Color of Skin.
White Points, Black Points, and Places In-Between.
Zone System: Contrast and Tone.
Neutral Color: Using Balanced Numbers.
Curves: The Basic Color and Tone Tool.
Contrast Control: The Basic Curve Shapes.
Info Palette: Reading Basic Numbers.
White/Black Point Correction.
Adjusting Numbers for the Color of Skin.
The Family of Man: Cultural and Psychological Issues.
Cultural and Personal Color Bias.
Chapter 5: Tone and Contrast: Color and B+W.
Converting to B+W.
The Channel Mixer.
Split Channels: Layer Blending.
Luminosity Blending.
Instant Tan.
When Color Overwhelms: Look for the Good Channel.
Hue/Saturation Toning Effects.
Split-Toning.
Gradient Map Colorizing.
The Power of B+W.
Chapter 6: Retouching.
Basic Image Repair.
Hue/Saturation Color Repair.
Beauty Retouching.
Figure Thinning Techniques.
Subtle Retouching.
Skin Smoothing.
Chapter 7: Special Effects.
Soft Focus.
Basic Diffusion Effect.
Screen Diffusion.
Overlay Diffusion.
Linear Light Diffusion.
Depth of Field Effects.
Lens Tilt Effect.
Film Grain and Mezzotint.
Cross-Processing.
Tattoos.
Faking Tattoos.
Chapter 8: Preparing for Print.
Sharpening.
Unsharp Mask.
Smart Sharpen.
Multiple Sharpening Layers.
Octave Sharpening.
Overlay Sharpening and High-Radius Effects.
Color Management for Print.
Profiles and Look-Up Tables.
Soft Proofing.
Desktop Printing.
Output Simulations.
Creative Print Finishing.
Last Minute Fixes.
Chapter 9: Parting Shots.
Digital Photo Workflow.
Companion CD Contents.
Chapter 2.
Chapter 3.
Chapter 4.
Chapter 5.
Chapter 6.
Chapter 7.
Chapter 8.
Future Developments.
Index.